Dina Gilio-Whitaker: Native academics support Israel boycott

Earlier this month the American Studies Association made big news when it voted to support the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, igniting a conflagration of controversy in the media and academic worlds. With the ink barely dry on the ASA resolution the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) followed up with a similar declaration of support for BDS. Both follow the precedent set by the Asian American Studies Association (AAAS) in April.

The NAISA Declaration of Support affirms that:

“NAISA is dedicated to free academic inquiry about, with, and by Indigenous communities. The NAISA Council protests the infringement of the academic freedom of Indigenous Palestinian academics and intellectuals in the Occupied Territories and Israel who are denied fundamental freedoms of movement, expression, and assembly, which we uphold.

As the elected council of an international community of Indigenous and allied non-Indigenous scholars, students, and public intellectuals who have studied and resisted the colonization and domination of Indigenous lands via settler state structures throughout the world, we strongly protest the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the legal structures of the Israeli state that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples.”